The Handmaid’s Tale

The motif of time is very apparent in this section. Time, something are never thought much of before her new life, is now an object she thinks about frequently. “There’s time to spare. This is one of the things I wasn’t prepared for – the amount of unfilled time,” (Atwood 69). “In the afternoons we lay o our beds for an hour in the gymnasium…they were giving us a chance to get used to blank time,” (70). “The clock ticks with its pendulum, keeping time my feet in their neat red shoes count the way down,” (79). This motif shows how much the lives’ of the women, including Offred’s, has changed. They are restricted from doing so much that the amount of free time they have overwhelms them.

The Handmaid’s Tale has many connections to 1984 by George Orwell. One connection is that in both stories, one cannot be sure whether what the government says is true or not. “Who knows if any of [the news] is true? It could be old clips, it could be faked…Any news, now is better than none,” (82). In 1984, the government changed all media so that it supported the Party, and Winston, the main character, could not be sure of what was real and what was faked, similarly to Offred in this instance. Another connection between the two books is that sex is not to be a pleasurable thing; it is merely to produce offspring. “It has nothing to do with passion or love or romance…It has nothing to do with sexual desire…Arousal and orgasm are no longer thought necessary…this is not recreation…this is…duty,” (94-95). Both governments want to control the emotions their subjects possess.

Moira, Offred’s best friend, is a symbol of strength and hope to Offred. Moira was able to escape from the Aunts, something no other woman was able to do. “It makes me feel safer, that Moira is here,” (71). Though Offred is unsure of what has happened to Moira, she hopes Moira is well. Many of Offred’s flashbacks are of times when Offred and Moira were together. Many...

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...﻿Throughout the entire text of The Handmaid'sTale, the ruling totalitarian government does what is in its power to attempt to isolate women from society. Not only do are the women isolated from society in terms of sexual contact (or any contact, for that matter), with men, but they are also individualized within the gender itself and separated from each other. Evidence of this isolation is available throughout the novel in different levels. The first level, perhaps the harshest, is the division of genders, with women like the Handmaids unable to communicate with unmarried men.
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...use. Soon all of the women will become brainwashed, simply because it is made nearly impossible to defy the rules
The Eye is the next highest up and are used as spies to keep the society the way it is and make sure no one consorts against it. Angel's are next because they are men so they are higher then all women. Their job is to make sure they are all safe and basically the police force. Men are the only ones who may drive cars, own property, have bank accounts, work, or even read from the Bible or any other text.
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Handmaids are the next class, they are the only women who can reproduce they are forced to have children for upper class couples women are often compromised by a forced sexual nature, thereby allowing them to be blamed for problems of conception. Handmaids show which Commander owns them by adopting their Commanders' names, such as Fred, and preceding them with "Of." I.e. Offred is one of these unfortunate servants who are only right to exist depends on her ovaries productivity. She lives with her commander and his wife in a highly supervised centre. All female characters in the text are only mentioned in relationship to a male owner of some sort. We find out about how...

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Margaret Attwood’s The Handmaid’sTale is widely regarded as a dystopian novel; presenting society in a distinctly negative light through its themes of oppression and human misery. Its heavily biased depiction of the Republic of Gilead is conveyed through the narrator Offred, who as a woman, has lost most of her rights, been torn away from her family and forced into an undesirable profession. But through such events, Attwood is able to highlight the most irrepressible of human emotions: hope. In the novel, hope is conveyed through the Mayday resistance, reflecting the fact that as a species, humans are resistant to change and will fight for what they believe in. Specifically for Offred, with written language banned, her discovery of a phrase etched into her wardrobe provides a piece of the past for her to hold on to, giving her strength to carry on. But despite these undertones of hope, the character Moira, who is initially presented as a catalyst for hope, is eventually forced into submission. This reflects that even though the message of the novel is the importance of hope in individual survival, ultimately hope does not prevail.
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Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’sTale is a disturbing novel that displays the presence and manipulation of power. This is displayed throughout the novel and is represented significantly in three ways. As the book takes place in the republic of Gilead, the elite in society are placed above every other individual who are not included in their level. Secondly, men are placed at the top of the chain and they significantly overpower women in the society (elite or not). Finally the individuals within the elite society also overpower each other and have their own separate roles. This can be interpreted as a chain. Men of the elite are placed at the top, the men who less elite are placed after then comes the women who are at the bottom. This distinguishes the ‘level’ of authority each group has which evidently shows the corruption in the structure of the society.
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